Ranked Choice Voting, A Better Way to Vote?

Tired of voting for a political candidate you don’t particularly like who represents a major political party you don’t particularly like so that another candidate who you dislike a little bit more won’t win office? If so, then ranked choice voting might be the electoral reform for you.

Ranked choice voting is a system in which voters don’t just vote for a single candidate for each listed office on their ballot. Instead, they rank all of the candidates running for that seat, 1-2-3 and so on. Then, if no candidate wins a majority of the first place votes, the least successful candidate on the ballot is eliminated and those who preferred them as their 1st choice are then distributed based on their 2nd choice. And so on and so forth until one candidate passes 50%.

Paul and Matthew are joined by Peter Van Doren as they discuss the ramifications of Maine changing to ranked choice voting (RCV) for federal elections in 2018, compare it to other alternative voting methods in other countries, and try to predict the ways it could transform American politics by validating third parties.

What is the “first-past-the-post” voting style? Does the U.S. voting system have an alienation problem? What is the Hastert Rule? Are third parties largely shoved to the side during U.S. elections?

Further Reading:

Resources for Ranked-choice Voting, Provided by the State of Maine

Ranked-choice voting worked in Maine. Now we should use it in presidential races, written by Lawrence Lessig

Ranked-choice voting passes the test in Maine, Boston Globe

Related Content:

Micro-Targeting Voters with Big Data, Building Tomorrow Podcast

“Pay No Attention to the Man Who Won’t Stand Behind the Voting Curtain”, written by Jonathan Banks

Some Very Good Reasons Not to Vote, written by Aaron Ross Powell and Trevor Burrus

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